The White House is proposing to slash Environmental Protection Agency funding that pays for Great Lakes pollution cleanup by 97 percent, according to a budget document obtained by the National Association of Clean Air Agencies.

The potential cuts are part of President Donald Trump's initial 2018 budget proposal, detailed in a U.S. Office of Management and Budget "passback" to the EPA that outlines drastic cuts to an agency Trump has called a "job killer" and promised to reduce to "tidbits" as a candidate.

The proposal would virtually eliminate annual Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) funding, slashing it from $300 million to $10 million among other cuts that would altogether reduce the EPA's total budget by a quarter. ...

The Trump administration says it will release its final budget the week of March 13. The EPA and State Department are expected to take major blows to meet Trump's goal of increasing military spending by 10 percent.

The proposal would virtually eliminate annual Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) funding, slashing it from $300 million to $10 million among other cuts that would altogether reduce the EPA's total budget by a quarter. ...

The Great Lakes contain 95 percent of America’s fresh surface water and supply drinking water to more than 30 million people in North America. The environmental and ecological justification for improving and maintaining the Great Lakes is undeniable but one must look no further than my of hometown Buffalo, N.Y., to see how Great Lakes cleanup is breathing new life into the economy of once struggling cities.

First initiated in 2010, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) is a multi-year, multi-agency effort to restore the Great Lakes by cleaning up pollution, promoting shoreline health, combating invasive species and protecting fish and wildlife. To date the program invested over $2.2 billion in Great Lakes restoration projects. Coordinated in both the United States and Canada, GLRI sets the standard for interagency and international cooperation.

This is what I don't get: American mining companies are saying they just can't make money mining coal, so Trump is slashing environmental regulations left, right, and centre. (See http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... try-214885) Australia has very strict OHS regulations (I once had a long conversation on a plane with the mining undersecretary under GWB; he was amazed at the OHS regulations in place here), very strict environmental regulations (mining companies are fined millions of dollars if they contaminate streams), and much higher wages (miners typically make six figures). Australian mining is profitable - highly profitable. If you can't make money paying crap wages, destroying the environment, and not giving a crap about the environment, aren't you just in the wrong industry?

maydijo wrote:This is what I don't get: American mining companies are saying they just can't make money mining coal, so Trump is slashing environmental regulations left, right, and centre. (See http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/ ... try-214885) Australia has very strict OHS regulations (I once had a long conversation on a plane with the mining undersecretary under GWB; he was amazed at the OHS regulations in place here), very strict environmental regulations (mining companies are fined millions of dollars if they contaminate streams), and much higher wages (miners typically make six figures). Australian mining is profitable - highly profitable. If you can't make money paying crap wages, destroying the environment, and not giving a crap about the environment, aren't you just in the wrong industry?

One problem is that eastern coal producers face stiff competition from Wyoming. Wyoming produces as much coal as the next 6 largest coal producing states combined (about 40% of all coal produced in the US comes from Wyoming). The mines in Wyoming are large open pit surface mines that are relatively inexpensive to operate. Thus while total coal production has increased over most of the last 50 years the production in eastern areas has declined. Another problem for coal has been the recent low price of natural gas.

Note that even though coal production more than doubled over the last 50 years mine employment plummeted due to mechanization. Those jobs aren't coming back.

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

The latest version of the GOP health care bill would end the law’s Prevention and Public Health Fund, which provides nearly $1 billion annually, in 2019. Those dollars have become an integral part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s budget, accounting for one-eighth of its funding and providing more than $300 million for immunizations alone.

CNN/ORC poll: Most back boost in infrastructure spending, oppose growing military budget ...

The poll results come about a week after Trump outlined some of his budget proposals in an address to a joint session of Congress. A budget request for 2018 is expected to reach Congress on March 16. ...

Trump's most popular budget proposals include reducing taxes for middle-class Americans (84% approve) and increasing spending on infrastructure (79% approve). Fewer favor reducing tax rates for American businesses (54% approve), and majorities disapprove of funding for a border wall with Mexico (61%) or increasing military spending by cutting finding for the State Department, EPA and other non-defense agencies (58%).

And with a plurality of Americans rating the economy as the top issue facing the country, most say that economic growth should be a higher priority than reducing the federal budget deficit. That suggests finding ways to pay for the increased spending in Trump's proposal may not prove to be a problem for the administration if it can demonstrate economic growth.

Overall, 57% say economic growth should be a priority over trimming the federal budget deficit, while 40% say the focus should be on reducing the deficit even if it risks limiting economic growth. That sentiment crosses party lines, with 60% of Democrats, 57% of independents and 52% of Republicans saying they would prioritize growth over cutting deficits.

The latest version of the GOP health care bill would end the law’s Prevention and Public Health Fund, which provides nearly $1 billion annually, in 2019. Those dollars have become an integral part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s budget, accounting for one-eighth of its funding and providing more than $300 million for immunizations alone.

Dumbasses

You are too kind.

Cutting back on immunization funding? What a great way to increase medical costs in the long run.

Trump- Tweet this 1000 times- An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Now they’ve set their sights on one of the most successful and noncontroversial energy-related programs the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ever managed – Energy Star, a program that saves consumers more than $30 billion a year.

According to E&E News, Trump’s draft budget encourages the EPA to “begin developing legislative options and associated groundwork for transferring ownership and implementation of Energy Star to a non-governmental entity.”

If you’ve shopped for a refrigerator, television, washing machine or computer in the last 25 years, you’ve likely run across a product that’s been certified by Energy Star. The voluntary program reviews the energy efficiency of a variety of electronic product categories, and labels the best performers – usually the top 25 percent – Energy Star Certified.

It’s a clever concept, like a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for energy, but with better measurement and verification. By highlighting a product’s energy performance and projected annual energy cost, Energy Star made energy efficiency a feature. ...

So what happens if they go ahead and kill Energy Star? We’ll see higher electric bills, less competitive manufacturing, wasted energy, more pollution and more sick kids. Is that making America great again?

This may sound surprising, but the Energy Star thing is an area where I'm willing to reserve judgment until I see a more concrete proposal. Energy Star is widely used, has coverage in other countries, and (as the article points out) is generally popular with both consumers and manufacturers. This isn't a program that's likely to end if the administration of the program is shifted from the US government to the private sector. And there are other examples of privately administered certification marks or collective marks with an equivalent function* that work reasonably well. The details of how it's done will matter, of course, but I really don't have a major issue with the EPA looking into how to shift management of the program out of government.

*eg Fair Trade

"I don't give a fuck whether we're peers or not."
--Lord Thomas Henry Bingham to Boris Johnson, on being asked whether he would miss being in "the best club in London" if the Law Lords moved from Parliament to a Supreme Court.

Mikedunford wrote:This may sound surprising, but the Energy Star thing is an area where I'm willing to reserve judgment until I see a more concrete proposal. Energy Star is widely used, has coverage in other countries, and (as the article points out) is generally popular with both consumers and manufacturers. This isn't a program that's likely to end if the administration of the program is shifted from the US government to the private sector. And there are other examples of privately administered certification marks or collective marks with an equivalent function* that work reasonably well. The details of how it's done will matter, of course, but I really don't have a major issue with the EPA looking into how to shift management of the program out of government.

*eg Fair Trade

Me too. also.

A Champagne Fair Judge is important, but it makes sense for it to be non-governmental. The best way to regulate the free market is to use its built-in incentives to regulate itself.

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."
---Sun Tzu (quoting Thomas Jefferson)nam-myoho-renge-kyo---Thomas Jefferson (quoting Slartibartfast)

One is that industry sponsored certifications tend to be easy-to-meet goals, which make people feel good about what they buy but really don't move the needle (see e.g. "80 Bronze" PC power supply certification)

Another is that having a certification that comes from outside the industry at least holds out the hope that certification won't be a pure marketing ploy (whether this is true in practice is another story)

At the end of the day, manufacturers really want to be able to put that blue label on at least some of their lines.. and of course they'd love to get rid of it.. but without it, they really aren't driven to the innovation to get to the next level of performance..

When I was a wee lad, at my first professional job out of school, a wise mentor (who happened to be a woman, unusual at the time ) told me "never forget: metrics beget behavior" .. how people/organizations/corporations are measured directly affects what they actually do..

One is that industry sponsored certifications tend to be easy-to-meet goals, which make people feel good about what they buy but really don't move the needle (see e.g. "80 Bronze" PC power supply certification)

Another is that having a certification that comes from outside the industry at least holds out the hope that certification won't be a pure marketing ploy (whether this is true in practice is another story)

At the end of the day, manufacturers really want to be able to put that blue label on at least some of their lines.. and of course they'd love to get rid of it.. but without it, they really aren't driven to the innovation to get to the next level of performance..

When I was a wee lad, at my first professional job out of school, a wise mentor (who happened to be a woman, unusual at the time ) told me "never forget: metrics beget behavior" .. how people/organizations/corporations are measured directly affects what they actually do..

I couldn't agree more.

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."
---Sun Tzu (quoting Thomas Jefferson)nam-myoho-renge-kyo---Thomas Jefferson (quoting Slartibartfast)

One is that industry sponsored certifications tend to be easy-to-meet goals, which make people feel good about what they buy but really don't move the needle (see e.g. "80 Bronze" PC power supply certification)

Another is that having a certification that comes from outside the industry at least holds out the hope that certification won't be a pure marketing ploy (whether this is true in practice is another story)

At the end of the day, manufacturers really want to be able to put that blue label on at least some of their lines.. and of course they'd love to get rid of it.. but without it, they really aren't driven to the innovation to get to the next level of performance..

When I was a wee lad, at my first professional job out of school, a wise mentor (who happened to be a woman, unusual at the time ) told me "never forget: metrics beget behavior" .. how people/organizations/corporations are measured directly affects what they actually do..

I would largely agree if this involved a new mark, or one that's not achieved household name status, or one that's not in use internationally, or a mandatory program. And I'm not necessarily in favor of privatizing Energy Star - the details will matter a lot. But it's not an obviously hideous idea. I think that the worst likely outcome would be program that's essentially unchanged, and a best case outcome could, depending on the degree of influence non-American governments ultimately acquire over a privatized mark, lead to a system where requirements tighten rather than loosen.

Here's my basic thinking:
1: There's already buy-in from all major stakeholders - consumers, NGOs, manufacturers, governments. People expect to see the mark when they are looking to purchase relevant products.

2: In the case of manufacturers, we know that the buy-in is real because participation in Energy Star is voluntary, and is driven by a combination of consumer response and response from other manufacturers. Unless their profit margins are lower on Energy Star-compliant products (and given that participation has always been voluntary and that there's never been anything to stop them from passing costs on, there's no reason to expect that to be the case), there's no particular reason for manufacturers to want to leave the program. And, even if a manufacturer wanted to get out, the products covered tend not to be in low-competition areas, which will tend to keep manufacturers in the program. So I don't think we're likely to see participation levels change substantially.

3: As I said, I'm willing to reserve judgment pending a final proposal, and the details will matter. I'd oppose something that turned the mark over to an exclusively industry-driven body. But I don't expect that would be the case because I doubt that the manufacturers would want exclusive control. There are a lot of NGOs with relevant interests, they are good at making noise, and the manufacturers are aware of optics. Given that they are largely happy with the current status quo, they have little reason to want to see major changes. They also have every reason to welcome an administrative setup that doesn't make the mark look like it's totally industry controled. So I'd expect the realistic worst case to be no change.

4: There will clearly be no tightening of Energy Star standards in the next four years if the mark remains under US government control. That expectation doesn't hold for a privatized mark, which would be free (for example) to establish multiple levels of certification or to tighten standards to make the mark even more appealing in other parts of the world with higher utility prices or tighter government standards. So there's a possibility (even if faint) that there might be improvements.

"I don't give a fuck whether we're peers or not."
--Lord Thomas Henry Bingham to Boris Johnson, on being asked whether he would miss being in "the best club in London" if the Law Lords moved from Parliament to a Supreme Court.

Just a thought. Moving certification to a non-governmental entitiy may hurt export business. A governmental provided label will provide a bona fide acceptance on similar foreign regulated markets. A private organisation may have to get some vetting under foreign jurisdiction to be accepted, or else products may require revalidation on the target market.

State Department staffers have been instructed to seek cuts in excess of 50 percent in U.S. funding for U.N. programs, signaling an unprecedented retreat by President Donald Trump’s administration from international operations that keep the peace, provide vaccines for children, monitor rogue nuclear weapons programs, and promote peace talks from Syria to Yemen, according to three sources.

The push for such draconian measures comes as the White House is scheduled on Thursday to release its 2018 budget proposal, which is expected to include cuts of up to 37 percent for spending on the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign assistance programs, including the U.N., in next year’s budget. The United States spends about $10 billion a year on the United Nations.

It remains unclear whether the full extent of the steeper U.N. cuts will be reflected in the 2018 budget, which will be prepared by the White House Office of Management and Budget, or whether, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has proposed, the cuts would be phased in over the coming three years. One official close to the Trump administration said Tillerson has been given flexibility to decide how the cuts would be distributed.

On March 9 in New York, U.S. diplomats in a closed-door meeting warned key U.N. members, including wealthy donors from Europe, Japan, and South Korea, to “expect a big financial constraint” on U.S. spending at the United Nations, said one European diplomat. “There are rumors of big cuts to the State Department budget, but again, on our side, no figures,” the diplomat said.

The cuts would fall heaviest on U.N. programs, like peacekeeping, UNICEF, and the U.N. Development Programme, that are funded out of the budget of the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs. It remains to be seen whether other U.N. agencies popular with Congress, like the World Food Programme and U.N. refugee operations — which are funded out of separate accounts in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the State Department, respectively — will get hit as hard. But one source tracking the budget proposal said the Trump administration is considering cuts of up to 36 percent on humanitarian aid programs.

The White House is signaling to Capitol Hill leaders that he wants money to beef up the U.S. border with Mexico in a spending bill due by late April, according to several people familiar with the matter. The move would risk a government shutdown: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has warned that trying to jam money into a must-pass funding bill would be met with stern Democratic resistance.

The White House is trying to persuade GOP leaders to include $3 billion to $6 billion in a funding package for border security, Republican sources said. Some of that money would be used to construct the wall, but significant portions would go toward immigration and customs enforcement. Republicans believe the latter move would make it harder for Democrats to vote against. But there are some divisions among Republicans as well. Many GOP lawmakers from border states are skeptical about how Trump would go about beefing up border defenses.

"I prefer to see a plan first before we start appropriating money,” said John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican. "We won't just appropriate money and have the plan TBD. And I've got some questions.”

The White House is set to unveil a budget for the next fiscal year on Thursday along with an immediate spending request that will include billions for fighting the Islamic State. But the most controversial will be the money funding the border wall.

Trump rolls out a 'hard-power' spending plan — and now the budget battle begins ...

Where Trump will hit resistance

The president's problem is that a shift in priorities of that magnitude requires legislation that alters spending caps that Congressional Republicans and Democrats agreed to during President Barack Obama's second term. That legislation is subject to filibuster. Amassing the 60 votes needed to overcome that hurdle requires acquiescence by at least eight Senate Democrats — and more if some Republican senators refuse to go along.

Republican resistance to Trump's request is highly likely. In 2013, after the so-called "sequester" cuts took effect, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee called for those caps to be lifted because a spending bill was too austere to attract sufficient Republican support.

The Senate's third-ranking Republican, John Thune, told me last fall "we've done as much as we can" to cut domestic spending, and that Congress now needs to turn toward curbing the massive entitlement programs of Social Security and Medicare. But President Trump has promised not to touch those programs, and Budget Director Mulvaney said the administration will keep that promise.

As a result, the president's budget submission represents a fresh volley in the ongoing political argument on the size and role of government. The proposed EPA cuts, Mulvaney said, reflect the president's views on climate change, which Obama considered a threat to the planet but which Trump has previously labeled a hoax. The cuts in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, he added, reflect the president's belief that many anti-poverty programs have failed to produce results. ...

Key Republicans such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have already said that deep cuts to the State Department, for example, will be rejected by Congress. Democrats and their outside allies will oppose cuts in social programs such as housing even more fiercely, arguing that those harmed will include many of the "forgotten Americans" Trump vowed in his campaign to protect.

"The idea that you can pull all this money out and have no adverse effects doesn't pass the laugh test," said Robert Greenstein, who directs the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

FITCH: The debt ceiling will be raised to $20,000,000,000,000 just in nick of time

The federal debt ceiling will either be suspended or raised on time, before midnight on March 16, as both Congress and the White House are under Republican control, said Fitch Ratings.

The rating agency put US sovereign debt on its negative watch the last time things came down to the wire in October 2013.

Last week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wrote Congress warning about the US federal debt situation the "extraordinary measures" the Treasury will have to take to continue funding the federal government if the debt ceiling is not raised by the deadline.

Fitch noted that a sizeable number of Republicans had opposed raising the debt ceiling in 2015 when the proposal was passed successfully with support from Democrats.

This time around, though, Fitch believes Republicans will offer lesser resistance as they are in control of both Congress and the White House.

President Trump’s proposed budget blueprint eliminates funding for Meals on Wheels, a program that provides meals for the poor, elderly and veterans.

Trump’s proposed cuts include $3 million from the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Community Development Block Grant program, which includes Meals on Wheels among other housing and community programs.

The budget outlines more than $6 million in cuts for HUD, a 13.2 percent decrease from its current funding.

Meals on Wheels reports that 3 percent of its funding comes from government grants, while 84 percent comes from corporate and foundation grants and individual contributions.

Meals on Wheels, which provides food to individuals who are unable to leave their homes, says it served more than 219 million meals to 2 million seniors in 2015.

I work with our local MOW - we serve about 70 seniors a day. None of our funds come from the Federal government, but I believe the food banks we get a lot of our food from get some Federal funding. If this goes away, I'm not sure we can continue.

“Dead on arrival”: Republicans rail against President Trump’s budget, call for even larger increases in military spending

President Donald Trump is determined to fulfill his campaign promise of shaking up Washington with his massively disruptive 2018 budget proposal. To hard-line conservatives in Congress, however, Trump’s “Hannibal Lecter” budget still doesn’t cut domestic spending or increase military spending enough.

“We wrote it using the president’s own words,” Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told MSNBC on Thursday morning as the budget was released. “We turned those policies into numbers.” A look at the budget, however, finds funding proposals more directly in line with White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon’s vow — to achieve the “deconstruction of the administrative state.”

Trump’s first budget proposal, which he named “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again,” would cut the funding of the Environmental Protection Agency 31 percent, the State Department 28 percent and the Department of Health and Human Services 17.9 percent. In total, Trump’s budget strips funding from more than 18 federal agencies.

The administration also proposed completely axing federal support for the Legal Services Corp., the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s $3 billion Community Development Block Grant program, which funds anti-poverty programs nationwide, would also be eliminated. ...

Before the White House had even released its official budget on Thursday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., had called Trump’s governing priority list “dead on arrival,” based on a reported blueprint. “What’s most disturbing about the cut to the State Department’s budget is it shows a lack of understanding of what it takes to win the war,” Graham told the BBC late last month. “If you take soft power off the table then you’re never going to win the war,” Graham said, calling Trump’s plan to slash that budget “a disaster.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had echoed Graham’s sentiments earlier this month. “The diplomatic portion of the federal budget is very important and you get results a lot cheaper frequently than you do on the defense side,” McConnell said. “So speaking for myself, I’m not in favor of reducing the [foreign aid] account to that extent.” McConnell said a budget that slashes State Department funds by one-third is unlikely to pass in his chamber.

The CSB has been chronically underfunded for years. Nevertheless it has managed to be the leader in incident investigation and development of regulations that promote safety and reduce risk to workers and communities. Without the CSB more people will die and the blood will be on Trump's tiny hands.

“If everyone fought for their own convictions there would be no war.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

maydijo wrote:This is what I don't get: American mining companies are saying they just can't make money mining coal...

Volk is correct, so read what he said then come back here.

Just adding, coal prices hit a ten-year low last year and they're only slightly rising now. Prices are down because worldwide demand is down. Demand is down in large part because China decided to switch to cleaner energy sources back in 2011. (China started shutting down its state-run coal mines that same year, and the shutdown happened faster than the switchover, so 2011 was a fluke windfall year for coal exporters.)

Leading into 2011, Big Coal made a number of large capital decisions based on continued Chinese demand, so now Big Coal is left servicing its capital debt in the face of lower worldwide demand and correspondingly low coal prices, along with - as Volk points out - competition from cheaper natural gas and renewables.

Moral of the story: Just because you buy your own climate denial bullshit doesn't mean China will as well.

Thankfully for the coal companies, they don't have to worry about innovation or diversification as long as the Dolt in Chief is happy to fork over the regulatory rents they are seeking. Unthankfully for former and soon to be former Appalachian coal miners, the Dolt in Chief is through with them now that they've cast their ballots for him, so he's working hard to strip them of economic development, job retraining, educational opportunities, and so forth. It looks like he's going to let them keep dying from heroin though, so they've still got that.

In a wilderness of mirrors, what will the spider do beyond the circuit of the shuddering Bear in fractured atoms? -TS Eliot (somewhat modified)

MRich wrote:I work with our local MOW - we serve about 70 seniors a day. None of our funds come from the Federal government, but I believe the food banks we get a lot of our food from get some Federal funding. If this goes away, I'm not sure we can continue.

I was a field coordinator for MOW in Oz for awhile. We did more than deliver meals. We'd chat with folks and put the meals in the frig. That way we could unobtrusively check on the person, make sure the home was safe, and see if there was enough food in the kitchen. If there were concerns, we'd call adult services to get more assistance for the person. MOW was part of the safety net that helped people live independently for as long as possible.

I haven't seen it used that way in Hawaii, but the meals are essential for the recipients. Probably the only human contact and the only food they'll have that day.